The solution according to one or more embodiments of the present invention relates to the network field. More specifically, this solution relates to wireless network access.
Networks are commonly used to interconnect remote data-processing systems, in order to share resources and information; a typical example is the Internet, which is formed by billions of computers connected one to another through a global communication network.
The access to the Internet is more and more often implemented with wireless techniques (i.e., without any physical connection). This is manly due to the widespread diffusion of mobile stations (MB), such as smart-phones, which are commonly used to access the Internet while around; particularly, the increasing need of relying on remote services leveraging the Internet may require the capability of connecting to the Internet almost from everywhere.
A commonplace solution for accessing the Internet with a mobile station is of connecting to a wireless network Access Point (AP)—typically based on the Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology; the access point relays information between each mobile station connected thereto and the Internet (which the access point is connected to in a wired way). The access point may be either unprotected or protected. An unprotected access point allows accessing the Internet by whatever mobile station within its transmission range (for example, in public locations); conversely, a protected access point requires some sort of authentication/registration before granting the access to the Internet (for example, to restrict its access or to collect a payment).
Alternatively, it is possible to use a mobile telephone infrastructure—for example, based on the 3rd generation (3 G) technology. However, a connection speed provided by the mobile telephone infrastructure is generally lower than that provided by the access points. Moreover, the mobile telephone infrastructure may be not always available with a bandwidth sufficient to provide an acceptable level of performance; for example, this may happen (especially in metropolitan areas) when the mobile telephone infrastructure is congested because too many mobile stations are connected thereto at the same time. In any case, the access to the Internet with the mobile telephone infrastructure is still quite expensive; this is particularly true abroad when it is necessary to exploit a local mobile telephone operator applying very high rates.
In order to tackle this problem, it is possible to roam from the mobile telephone infrastructure to an available access point when a higher connection speed is required (for example, as described in US-A-2005/0025164, the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference).
Moreover, US-A-2005/0143094 (the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference) discloses an access point locator service that may be offered by a mobile telephone operator; in this case, the mobile telephone operator determines the access point being closest to each mobile station (according to its current position) and notifies it to the mobile station (either in a push mode or in a pull mode).
US-A 20105159818 (the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference) discloses a method wherein the mobile stations continually collect information about the unprotected access points (comprising their position as determined via a GPS system) into a shared database, which is then used to select a specific unprotected access point that is nearby each mobile station.
Likewise, in US-A-2007/0167174 (the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference) the mobile stations collect information about the unprotected access points into a shared database; in this case, each mobile station sends a request for nearby unprotected access points to a provider, which selects them from the database and returns corresponding information to the mobile station.
In US-A-2007/0297455 as well (the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference), the mobile stations collect information about the unprotected access points; in this case, each mobile station retrieves information about nearby unprotected access points directly from other mobile stations via a local connection. A similar technique is also disclosed in “WI-FI ACCESS POINT DISCOVERY SYSTEM FOR MOBILE USERS, Nakai, Y.; Ohshima, K.; Tajima, K.; Terada, M., Computer Science and Software Engineering (JCSSE), 2011 Eighth International Joint Conference on 11-13 May 2011, ISBN: 978-1-4577-0686-8” (the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference).
However, the unprotected access points are not available everywhere; all the more so, when around it is very difficult (if not almost impossible) to have protected access points available to which the mobile station is entitled to connect. Therefore, very often the mobile station is not within the transmission range of any access point which it may connect to. In this condition, the access to the Internet may be provided by the mobile telephone infrastructure only, if available (with the drawbacks pointed out above).